In his book The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer, Dr. Harvey Karp offers a practical plan to sooth your baby. Try following any or all of Dr. Karp’s 5 S’s: swaddling, side or stomach, soothing sounds, swinging, or sucking.
One Tough Job Blog
Our blog contributors are Massachusetts moms and dads and professionals who work with parents. Each contributor has a unique perspective of the joys and challenges of raising kids.
Meg and I both say that we never imagined having kids until we met the person we wanted to have a kid with. I mean, we all say we want to grow up meet someone and have a family, but, much like the greasy piece of pizza I just ate before a 4 hour meeting in a hot room, I don't always think things through. We all know how the first six weeks of motherhood slapped us in the face like a scorned lover on Jerry Springer. But there are many things that have happened since then that have taught me things about myself.
We all know there’s no such thing as a perfect parent, but if you’re doing at least a few of the things on this list, then rest assured—you’re doing great!
I think all you moms out there are familiar with mom guilt. It's that twinge a woman* feels when she overhears another mom at the playground saying something like "well, of course we're only feeding our daughter homemade, organic, local, fair trade, non-GMO, hormone-free baby food." You nod your head enthusiastically while frantically covering up the label on your just-plain-old-Gerbers baby food. You consider buying some organic jars to have with you when you're out in public. Ugh, my kid is going to grow an extra arm because her pears aren't organic! Welcome to mom guilt.
There is a difference between passive screen time such as watching a movie and active screen time such as communicating with a loved one via Skype or playing an interactive game.